ABSTRACT
A recurrent theme of accounts of the war was the vulnerability and virtual isolation of the individual beset by the technology of war. Not surprisingly, the pre-war concern for the maintenance of morale and sustaining esprit de corps assumed a fresh urgency, with many stressing the moral and psychological qualities needed to win, criticizing Bloch for ignoring the human spirit. ‘The moral is to the physical as three to one’ became the mantra of armies studying the Russo-Japanese War and was much relied upon by General Hamley in his influential work Operations of War.1 Unfortunately it also resulted in the neglect of the most obvious lessons on how best to organize and apply the physical.
